Monday, September 6, 2010

THEOLOGIAN. THE FURTHER I GET FROM YOUR STAR, THE LESS LIGHT I FEEL ON MY FACE CD NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER FROM CRUCIAL BLAST

Theologian debuts here with it's first widely available release through Crucial Blast, The Further I Get From Your Star, The Less Light I Feel On My Face, an abyssal blast of nebulous black electronics and subterranean death-synth. We are releasing the cd in a deluxe, six-panel DVD style digipack (along the same lines as the last Navicon Torture Technologies release Gospels Of The Gash) as well as an exlcusive Theologian shirt design, a cd/shirt/sticker/buttons package, and a limited edition, hand-numbered silkscreened poster for The Further I Get From Your Star designed by Leech and professionally printed by Contagious Graphics. The poster will either be shipped alone, rolled in a tube, or as part of the cd/shirt/poster bundle option.

The exclusive The Further I Get From Your Star, The Less Light I Feel On My Face shirt design is printed on black Gildan 100% cotton shirts by Mammoth Screenprinting, with white discharge printing on the front.

All items will ship out by the end of September (if not sooner) from Crucial Blast.

The Further I Get From Your Star, The Less Light I Feel On My Face is the latest chapter from New York power electronics/synth-death demon Leech. This is the first full-length, widely available release from Leech's new incarnation as Theologian, which picks up where he left off with his long-running project Navicon Torture Technologies. Over the past decade, Navicon Torture Technologies blurred the edges of power electronics and dark industrial on albums like The Church Of Dead Girls (2002, Malignant), VTERVS (2008, NCC) and The Gospels Of The Gash (2009, Malignant) before ceasing operations in 2009. Now reconstituted as Theologian, Leech again explores the further realms of experience with a new form of blackened synth dread that combines many of the sounds that made up NTT's crushing electronic attack (Swedish death industrial, classic power electronics, harsh noise, powernoise) with a new level of heaviness and droneological power.Following a series of small-run collaborations (with Wilt, Steve Moore, and The Vomit Arsonist) that were released on Leech's own label Annihilvs, Theologian delivers it's first full-length album, a seven-track descent into roaring, cosmic drone and howling black hole electronics, colossal industrial soundscapes and grim low-end heaviness. The opening track "Zero" sounds like early space music (Schulze, Tangerine Dream, etc) being blasted through massive bass-heavy sound system directly into the Void; its followed by the sprawling twenty-four minute "In Times of Need, We All Go Against Our Natures", which starts with distant twilight factory rumblings and murky motorized reverberations, then slowly reveals a bleak, shadowy realm of grimy minor-key synths slowly drifting underneath the industrial buzz and hum, both mysterious, and immensely grim. After a few minutes, eerie choral voicings begin to appear, and the sound continues to slowly develop into a vast expanse of lush isolationist ambience, a simple three-note melody repeating over and over deep beneath the peals of muted electronic tones, distant grinding, hushed whispering, and oncoming waves of black feedback, becoming darker and more menacing as it goes on. Then a male voice appears off in the background, awash in delay, forming these haunting multi-part harmonies that drift beneath the smoldering electronic noise; after a while, it almost sounds like something from Sigur Ros slowly falling into Stygian blackness, the singing becoming warped and fractured as the swirling black synths corrode and decay into a buzzing, churning field of irradiated drone, getting heavier, more distorted, until the final eight minutes finally form into a wash of blackened doom-drone heaviness surrounded with icy synth pulses, eerie choral voices, grinding industrial dread, and fearsome distorted screams, a sort of pitch-black power electronics dirge...That epic track may be the album's heaviest moment, but the rest of Your Star is just as bleak and lightless. Another massive slab of murky, molten ambience unfolds with "Unfamiliar Skies", where sheets of glacial string-like drones swirl beneath blown-out synthesizer rumble, and a simple rhythmic throb pulses at the black rotting center, surrounded by clouds of crackling static, and gradually becoming streaked with oscillating sine waves and heavy gusts of black distortion. The title track is blighted isolationist drone shattered by the burning descent of black stars falling from the skies, underscored by a gorgeous, wavering blissed-out drone; halfway through, it shifts gears into hallucinatory, dark wave-infected power electronics with ultra-distorted demonic/robotic vocals and super dense walls of deteriorating drone and sepulchral synthesizer. The remaining tracks move through roaring melodic drift, wailing distorted vocals, and seriously acerbic distortion that combine into mantras of narcotized power electronics, throbbing black machine pulsations, chthonic ambience laced with metallic ringing, eerie sublimated melodies and deep low-end bone-rattling churn, at times sounding really soundtrack-esque, even resembling a more apocalyptic, deformed take on John Carpenter's film score work at times. The hidden final track "The Fragility Of The Male Ego..." finishes the album with a crushing industrial dirge sculpted out of droning feedback and overdriven distortion, as caustic as anything that's come before, with a very subtle dark wave quality lurking beneath the scorched electronics that makes this sound somewhat like hearing a Projekt Records track being remixed by a Japanese noise extremist.Like Navicon, Theologian combines several different disciplines of industrial into a signature sound, a doom-laden hybrid of death industrial and power electronics and black ambience that's spliced with a constant melodic presence; the music is harsh, often hellish, but accentuated by an icy, desolate beauty that gives The Further I Get From Your Star, The Less Light I Feel On My Face it’s unique, abyssal vibe.The album is being released on Cd in deluxe dvd-style digipack packaging with striking artwork and visual design by Leech, and as a digital download.

1 comment:

Lee, this is absolutely the most magnificent piece of art I have heard. In Times of Need we All Go against our Natures. I can't believe the movements in that 24 minute track. I haven't heard anything like it, exquisite.

ANNIHILVS POWER ELECTRONIX

I founded ANNIHILVS POWER ELECTRONIX in the Summer of 1997 as a means to release and distribute material by NAVICON TORTURE TECHNOLOGIES and affiliated artists. The first release from ANNIHILVS was the AMALGAM: a collection of war poems split cd. Containing material by NEGATIVE EIGHT, a cross-genre experimental side project of the industrial/grind/metal band NEGATIVEHATE, coupled with early recordings from NTT in the form of lo-fi power electronics and ambient noise, AMALGAM simultaneously introduced both the label and its flagship artist to the world.
In the more than ten years since the birth of the label, a massive discography and impressive roster of artists has been assembled. As an artistic endeavour, there is little question that some degree of success has been achieved, strictly based on the number of releases and events under the ANNIHILVS name.